REGION: Terrorist cell was embedded deeply in San Diego

As Newsweek reported, on the same day in early 2000 that
al-Bayoumi visited the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles for a private
meeting, he went to a restaurant and ended up at a table next to
al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi. He told authorities later it was a chance
meeting in which he and the two al-Qaida operatives struck up a
friendly conversation, and he asked them whether they wanted to
move to San Diego.

Al-Bayoumi set the two terrorists up in an apartment in
Clairemont near the San Diego Islamic Center mosque, and he paid
$1,500 to cover their first two months of rent.

When asked after the attack in 2001 about al-Bayoumi's possible
role in 9/11, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore, who was then the
local head of the FBI, told Newsweek the local investigation had
found no evidence that al-Bayoumi was involved in the attack.

Later, a former top FBI official told Newsweek, "We firmly
believed that (al-Bayoumi) had knowledge (of the 9/11 plot)."

After 9/11, al-Bayoumi was detained by New Scotland Yard while
living in the U.K. but was released a week later and allowed to
return to Saudi Arabia. Gore said the FBI sent agents to London to
interview him.

Newsweek reported that classified sections of the Congressional
9/11 Inquiry indicated that the Saudi Embassy in London pushed for
al-Bayoumi's release.

Local Saudis tied to hijackers, Saudi
royals

Another San Diego Saudi who befriended the hijackers (and knew
al-Bayoumi) was Osama Basnan. As Newsweek reported at the time, he
received monthly checks for several years totaling as much as
$73,000 from the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince
Bandar, and his wife, Princess Haifa Faisal.

The checks were sent because Basnan's wife, Majeda Dweikat,
reportedly needed thyroid surgery. She then signed many of the
checks over to Basnan's friend, Manal Bajadr, who was al-Bayoumi's
wife. This money allegedly made its way into the hands of San
Diego-based hijackers al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, according to the
congressional report.

At a post-9/11 gathering in San Diego, Basnan allegedly called
the attack "a wonderful, glorious day" and celebrated the
hijackers' "heroism." Basnan and his wife, Dweikat, admitted they
had used false immigration documents to stay in the United States,
and were arrested. Despite all this, Basnan was ultimately allowed
to return to Saudi Arabia, and Dweikat was deported to Jordan.

Mystery man funded a mosque

During a one-week visit to San Diego, yet another mysterious
Saudi, Saad al-Habeeb, purchased a building in El Cajon with a
$450,000 cashier's check for use as a mosque and community center
for San Diego's Kurd Muslims.

His motivation for this gift was never explained, but it was
given on the condition that al-Bayoumi be set up as the building's
maintenance manager and given a private office at the mosque, with
a phone and a computer. But leaders of the Kurd mosque said at the
time that al-Bayoumi was never seen in that building, and al-Habeeb
disappeared.

Student allegedly knew about 9/11 plan

The hijackers made friends quickly thanks to al-Bayoumi, who
threw a party introducing them to many in the local community.
Among the hijackers' friends was Mohdar Abdullah, a student at
Grossmont College at the time who told authorities that al-Bayoumi
had asked him to help the future hijackers learn English and get
driver's licenses.